1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a drawing apparatus and a drawing method for a drawing apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, drawing apparatuses for drawing nail designs on nails are known (e.g. see Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication (Translation of PCT Application) No. 2003-534083).
Nail designs can be enjoyed readily without visiting a nail salon or the like by using such an apparatus.
With drawing apparatuses (nail printing apparatuses), the use of writing utensils (pens) such as those applied to ink jet drawing heads and pen plotters is being investigated as a means for drawing a nail design such as a color, pattern, or the like on the surface of a nail.
However, the shape of the fingers and nails of humans varies and, thus, it is difficult to arrange the entire region of the nail at a substantially uniform height, even if, for example, the nail free end is set at the correct position in the apparatus.
On this point, ink jet drawing heads perform drawing by ejecting ink as a mist on a drawing object. However, in order to land the ejected ink at the predetermined position, the drawing object must be within the limit of the flying distance of the ejected ink.
Due to this, in cases where some portions of the drawing object, namely the nail, are significantly low in height and a distance between the drawing head and the nail is too great, the ink will not land correctly at the predetermined position and, as the distance increases, the drawing will gradually become faded or distorted. Consequently, drawing quality will degrade. Additionally, in cases where the distance in the height direction between the nail and the drawing head is significantly greater than the expected distance, the ink ejected from the head may not reach the drawing object, namely the nail, and there is a possibility that the drawing may not be able to be performed.
Additionally, in cases of performing drawing using a pen, even if a configuration is adopted in which a height of the pen is vertically movable to a certain degree in accordance with the height of the nail, in a case where the drawing object, namely the nail, is positioned outside of this driving range, the pen tip will not reach the nail and a situation will occur in which the drawing cannot be performed.
In light of the problems described above, an object of the present invention is to provide a drawing apparatus by which quality of a predetermined degree or higher can be preserved in cases of drawing a nail design on a nail; and a drawing method for the drawing apparatus.